Barack Obama, doing his best to make Dick Cheney’s questions about leadership look rational, has assigned John Brennan to conduct the Administration’s ballyhooed investigation into the claimed failure of the terrorist watchlist program in the Christmas Fruit Of The Loom Bomber incident.

President Barack Obama promised a “thorough review” of the government’s terrorist watch-list system after a Nigerian man reported to US government officials by his father to have radicalized and gone missing last month was allowed to board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit that he later tried to blow up without any additional security screening.

Yet the individual Obama has chosen to lead the review, White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, served for 25 years in the CIA, helped design the current watch-list system and served as interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center, whose role is under review.

In the three years before joining the Obama administration, Brennan was president and CEO of The Analysis Corporation, an intelligence contracting firm that worked closely with the National Counterterrorism Center and other US government intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security agencies on developing terrorism watch-lists.

“Each and every day, TAC makes important contributions in the counterterrorism (CT) and national security realm by supporting national watchlisting activities as well as other CT requirements,” the company’s Web site states.

According to financial disclosures forms released by the White House, Brennan served as president and CEO of TAC from November 2005 until January 2009, when Obama named him to the White House terrorism and homeland security job. The disclosures show that Brennan reported earning a $783,000 annual salary from the Analysis Corporation in 2008. ….

One former senior intelligence official told POLITICO it is “unsavory to see Obama put Brennan in charge of a review of this matter since it is possible that NCTC or TAC could have failed in their responsibilities.”

Oy. “Unsavory”? Ya think? This is akin to a law school final exam where you try to identify all the conflicts of interest in the given situation. But there is not enough time to hit them all. Do not fret, the crack White House ethics team has looked at Brennan and determined there are no conflicts at all. Which is pretty strong evidence that the White House ethical team might ought to be checked out for its own conflicts, if not sanity.

By virtue of his experience, John brings a unique mixture of know-how and understanding to this assignment,” said Denis McDonough, National Security Council chief of staff. “The applicable ethics rules recognize that when the public interest outweighs other issues, an official should be authorized to proceed with an assignment, particularly in the national security arena.

Well, that is reassuring. Or, you know, not so much. I can’t wait for the New Year’s Eve 4 pm news dump out of the White House. My prediction is Hank Paulson will be named Obama’s point man to lead the investigation of the racketeering, fraud and conspiracy at Goldman Sachs McClatchy has been meticulously detailing.

You have to hand it to the Obama White House, they have the last administration beat hands down. Even Bush and Cheney didn’t think to have Paul Wolfowitz lead an investigation into their Iraq war and occupation strategy.

Brennan served as president and CEO of TAC from November 2005 until January 2009, when Obama named him to the White House terrorism and homeland security job. The disclosures show that Brennan reported earning a $783,000 annual salary from the Analysis Corporation in 2008. ….

How nice. Another robber baron. They resign their robber baron position every now and then for a term at the levers of government control so that they can game the system when they leave government “service.”

Government by robber barons, of robber barons, and for robber barons. We the people? Not so much.

We are posting our written authorization and waiver under the ethics rules to John Brennan to participate in the reviews of the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253. John is the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. By virtue of his long experience in government and the private sector, John brings a unique mixture of know-how and understanding to this assignment.

The applicable ethics rules recognize that under the circumstances set forth in the attached memo, counsel should review the matter and authorize the official to proceed with the assignment where the public interest so requires. That is particularly true where, as here, national security concerns are implicated. We have done that analysis and have determined that, as set out in the authorization and waiver, it is in the public interest for John to proceed.

Of course, this is the sort of thing that would made Dick Cheney quite happy, so don’t expect to see any criticism of this move make it to network TV or any other place that non-news-junkies might see it.

Whitewash I wonder who will he pin this on a computer glitch or will he blame the CIA for not updating their lists?
Didn’t a few Lefties have problems flying because of this list? Funny how they made the list and this guy got through. I bet there will be no mention of that.

“I’m on the Transportation Security Administration’s watch list. The watch list is being used for political purposes … It is very intimidating to be taken aside and be given a special screening by the state when I travel. When I went up to Vermont to copy-edit this book … I opened my case, and there was a letter from the Transport Security Administration in my suitcase. We are living in a surveillance society now. It’s time to sound the alarm.”

Obviously the review is not to overhaul a system beset by the information overload of an overwhelming number of false positives but to find out who dropped the ball. A “systemic failure” is going to be reviewed from the point of view of “personal accountability”. It’s not that the procedures were wrong, but that some person or department did not follow the procedures in a timely manner. At least it’s obvious (and must bring some comfort to the intelligence community that is “so unsure” of Barack Obama).

A lower level civil service employee with a narrowly defined task could have done as much and not been noticed.

Maybe if Darth was not so busy spying on Lefties and putting them on no fly lists then maybe all that extra manpower could have kept tabs on that would be bomber.
Lets see if anyone in the Media has the Stones to ask Darth that question.

Establish a formal “Office of Connecting the Dots Bureau”
Staff it with employees of the Onion in Madison, Wisconsin.
Fund it with a tax on anonymous sources.
Advertise it when the OPR Report (it’s late/late)is issued.

Senior administration officials said that for the past few days, the White House’s legal and ethics counsel has been reviewing Brennan’s ties and determined that given Brennan’s knowledge of and experience with the intelligence community, any conflict was outweighed by the need for Brennan’s expertise on the issue.

Holy Shit Naomi got on the No fly list for no other reason than she is a Lefty. Rahm thinks if you are on the list you can’t own a gun. Maybe Jane should give the NRA a call I like them more than Grover.

One senior former intelligence official told POLITICO it is “unsavory to see Obama put Brennan in charge of a review of this matter since it is possible that NCTC or TAC could have failed in their responsibilities.”

Who is this senior former intelligence official ? Do
they have a conflict that would cause them to want to denigrate the review?

Read through one Koz thread comments on Rush one mention heart condition one mention heart attack but no links given his size its likely however heart condition could just be a cover story for something worse or more embarrassing.
Heck botched liposuction is my guess.

…sure the tighty whiteys bomber’s Dad sent out warnings…the State Department had a trackable visa and passport travel trail to follow up on…a mysterious “handler” helped undie bomber get on board which surely was not normal for the airports security practices…odd that being so…but the dots were too hard to connect via computer cross checking or data profile alerts…security is hard work…kriminee sakes…blah blah blah
…no one flunked,failed or will get a pink slip. Remember — this guy did not get on board with a box cutter,a shoe bomb or a bottle of water…graded on a curve this was a success…right?

We are not going to get any real reports on Rush he probably has a private room and Doctors all paid extra to keep quiet unless the Lake knows a nurse or Doctor at that hospital we got nothing definite.
Does the Lake have anyone in place? please please please!

To take it one step further, I suspect Joe Lieberman (Chair of Senate Homeland Security committee), Rahm, and “Israel’s Lawyer” Dennis Ross (in charge of M.E. policy for the White House based NSC, would all agree that a vibrant, healthy, representative American democracy is bad for expansionist Israeli policies.

Michael Chertoff is widely believed to have written the Patriot Act before 9/11. Chertoff’s mother helped create the Mossad.

If the Israel Lobby can write legislation that almost everybody in Congress rubber stamps no matter how repulsive, who’s to say that AIPAC would stop their omnipotent lobbying efforts if supporting Israeli war crimes and expansion became untenable because of an irate American public?

Who’s to say that Congress could resist?

An Israeli company was in charge of security at that airport in Amsterdam last week. Is it possible that this kid was allowed on the plane because it would be “good for Israel”?

Lord knows the C.I.A. was fully aware of him. Lord knows Brennan would be a good choice to cover up any incriminating evidence.

I read two stories on saturday, 12/26 that the so-called terrorist was boarded in Amsterdam in spite of having no passport.

He was escorted to the boarding gate by a man described as a nicely dressed Indian around 50 years old. This man was said to have told the folks at the gate that “This man needs to get on theis flight and he has no passport.”

The source for this story provided a boarding pass as proof that he and his wife were on the flight.

I have found various descriptions of security at Schiphol airport online, and most say that they are professional and secure, Matt Yglesias’ blog contains many posts describing peoples experience at Schiphol, and they are almost unanimous, the place is very secure.

Of course the MSM is pushing a story that highlights he had a valid passport, but that’s to be expected isn’t it?

I mean how many low level security employees are going to speak-up and contradict a false story if it just happens to absolve them of any responsibility.

Homeland Security (HLS) & Public Safety in Israel
FYI
This relates to the Fruit of the Loom bomber.
After 911, Israel saw a “growth opportunity” and began the “homeland security industry” They have trade fairs for governments all over the world.

The link is to a rather slick PR online brochure. For more, read The Shock Doctrine – Klein. Wonder if SHE’S on the list?

Your distracting from the real issue any Lefty without trial can be put on the No Fly List and that means that Rahm will come to our homes looking for our guns legal or illegal. If Rahm claims we might have illegal guns he can search all our homes.
There is no due process to get on the No Fly List and no due process that I know of to get off the list. Suppose the terror attack worked we all could in a new climate of Fear have our homes searched.
Israel Lobby is bad but secondary.

There is no doubt that Brennan is the man most responsible for the system that failed. But it’s hard to imagine anyone calling Obama’s decision to put him in charge of reviewing its failure “unsavory.” President Obama is the bravest, warmest, kinds, most intelligent and wonderful person ever born on this planet.

Lieberman actively and viciously campaigned against Obama, but he got to keep his Homeland Security Chairmanship?

Rahm the IDF volunteer wants to decide for himself who gets to keep their 2nd Ammendment rights?

Chertoff, son of Mossad, writes and implements the Patriot Act?

Even if I’m way off base, thanks for recognizing the danger of Machiavellian ballerinas wanting to limit the ability of political opponents to defend themselves against a possible future corporatist government hellbent on retaining and consolidating power with a wildly unpopular and inhumane agenda.

Furthermore, on Flight 11, Lewin was seated one row behind two of the
hijackers and one row in front of one other hijacker. What are the
odds that an Israeli anti-terrorism soldier would be sitting near all
of these hijackers?”

Wow! THe White House ethics guy gave Brennan an ethics waiver. Wish I would have known about such a deal. Imagine how much easier it would have been to pass college tests. Can you get an ethics waiver for your income tax reports?

No watch list system can work. The bad guys can just recruit someone with a clean record and a harmless name (say, Richard Reid) with a passport from an EU country, and next time they can make the guy shave and wear a suit. The good news, though, is that few people want to be terrorists, so they really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get these guys. Looks like Mohammed Atta was the last competent person they recruited.

Changing the system so that the underwear bomber couldn’t fly to the US would probably result in a system where no person ever heard to mouth off about the horrible things the US is doing in the world can fly to the US. The result would be that technology companies, which rely heavily on people not born here, would have to move their operations out of the US, taking millions of jobs with them.

The right response here isn’t improving the watch list. Maybe we could use dogs to sniff out explosives before they can get on planes, thereby catching people whether they are on a list or not.

I think that government should maintain the same standard of avoiding the appearance of impropriety. It just strikes me that this “review” looks so questionable and tainted from the outset, there is no legitimate purpose in it. No matter what the result, it can never be trusted because it will lead a rational neutral observer to wonder “why was it done in this manner – what was really up?” There are a hundred people in or about Washington qualified to do this review that are not tainted like Brennan; why does Obama insist on him? It just reeks. And he has a proven track record of being a go to guy to clean up politically uncomfortable situations and hiding the truth from his involvement in the Bush torture program. It just reeks.

I’m kind of wondering if wigwam has a point (@36 – not so much 48 *g*) Rayne, Brennan wasn’t a left behind, Obama embraced him as an advisor before the elections – at least during the primaries. He gave Obama that tingly, insider to torture and US power crimes cache. Maybe he hasn’t so much needed “the goods” on Obama as he’s been able to take an inexperienced, empty suit, and pretty much form him.

This is starting to be a meme with Obama. From Goldman Sachs guys financial bailout to Wellpoint exes writing healthcare legislation to the TAC CEO (who also has a vested interest in covering for The Company) investigate the TAC/Company failures.

wow. what a great picture of a Fox. Lets not be hard on the fox guys, if we didnt have all the chickens locked up in one place the fox wouild stay out of the hen house.(THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL METAPHOR. I like foxes. there are a couple of them in the little patch of scrub woods behind my house)

This is so naive, bmaz, that your eyes will probably glaze over while reading it. And it’s so loosely related to the subject of your excellent post, that you’ll probably throw a brick at me. But, if we the taxpayers now own 80% of AIG, do we have any ownership rights? As in, demanding a complete accounting (professional audit) of the place from a few years back to today? Or some other equally far-fetched notion?

We have lost so much control over so much, that I suspect I’m in a pre-panic mode about this absurd (but certainly not from their point-of-view) appointment of Brennan. We increasingly have no say, no more, no how. And the merger of corporatism and government continues apace.

“The United Nations is moving as many as 60 foreign employees, or about one-quarter of its international staff, out of Pakistan for at least six months out of safety concerns, a United Nations official said Thursday.”

What’s the easiest way to let the guy most associated with national security cover his ass instead of find systemic or idiosyncratic error(s) in our “protective shield”? Put him in charge of the investigation.

In Europe, this is sometimes done in order to hoist a bureaucrat on his own petard. But there, unlike here, politicians are still forced to resign and permanent bureaucrats are still fired or forced to resign because they’ve bolloxed things up or because they are taking one for the boss. Here, politicos circle the tradmed wagons and never, ever stop shooting until their critics have parted the scene. (See, Dick Cheney.) They also never fix the problems their rule discloses.

Is this the first time in is life that Mr. Obama has underperformed by being cautious, safe and unleaderly?

That’s not a trail; it’s all rumor and innuendo. (Also, everyone I know who’s flown in and out of Europe, Schiphol included, in the last 20 years says their airport security is much better than ours. And not nearly as humiliating to passengers. So I seriously doubt that no-passport story.)

I have a little problem with the profile that seems to be emerging for John Brennan here. I think it very much understates his origins and career path in CIA. Apparently he was always on the Analysis side of the agency, came up through the various Middle East desks, probably promoted because he is fluent in Arabic, which in the 70′s and 80′s was a fairly rare skill at Langley, particularly on the Analysis side. He apparently moved to senior management status about the same time George Tenet arrived at the agency as Deputy Director, lined up with Tenet during the Clinton Administration, and moved up when Tenet was promoted to director. He seems to have had the Saudi account for a number of years, primary top level management contact with the Saudi’s during most of the Clinton-Tenet years.

When Porter Goss replaced Tenet, Brennan pretty much had to retire, as unlike the Gosslings — the outside operatives Goss brought into management, Brennan was far too identified with Tenet, and by extension with the Clinton Crowd. In essence it was a forced retirement, as few agency types who rise essentially by merit to management go back to the trenches when the political leadership changes. I don’t get the impression that Brennan’s move to the private contractor side was an intended career move, Richard Clark used Brennan as a named source in his book, “Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters,” as a critic of outsourcing, at least to the extent it was practiced in the Bush/Cheney Administration, even though at the time Brennan was describing himself in the private sector as a “Butts in Seats” administrator — Essentially finding persons minimally qualified to occupy a seat in a contractor’s set-up, either in an outside office, or at CIA and other agencies. I am not at all certain this makes Brennan a great exponent of privatization of Intelligence…and would suggest that not putting him in proper context leads to a quite inaccurate and incomplete profile.

At the same time, Brennan is no “profile in Courage” type, putting everything on the line, for instance, around the torture program contracting for instance. But those types very rarely get promoted at CIA, let alone find themselves in the Senior Service and Management. And Barack Obama does not hire those sorts — we know he excluded all the political drama queens from his campaign staff — and he is hardly hiring them for his administration.

I’m on the same list. Being searched multiple times by strangers is indeed intimidating. It is also unpleasant for those of us Scandihoovian types that aren’t used to being touched (as a matter of fact, the guys that frisked/groped me WOULD have found the Nigerian underwear bomb had they been on the job in Amsterdam). Having your person violated by strangers is, moreover, maddening. It provokes anger, tension, and fear in the witnesses to the process–which is, of the course, the real point of the exercise.

I have a very, very common name (the second or third most common combination of first and last names for males, depending on the year). The silliness of this is such that a couple dozen of my namesakes were featured on 60 Minutes. The false-positive effect clearly swamps any possibility of ever successfully barring my presumably terroristical namesake from boarding an airplane, and the extra workload required to make us listees jump through the extra “security” hoops clearly makes it impossible for Homeland Security to find the time to act when a Nigerian father warns them that his son might be a mad bomber. So what is this watch list really for?

The answer is that it is political/public relations ploy. It keeps tension high and makes way for ever more repressive “security” measures. If it provides cover for tracking and harassing political opponents and critics, so much the better. But the real reason is to bully the citizenry and keep it from focusing on what is happening in Washington and on Wall Street.

Sensible safety measures are obviously necessary. First and foremost, we had to stop people using planes as missiles. Reinforcing and locking the flight-deck door–as aviation safety experts recommended for decades prior to 9/11–solved that problem. Now we just need to keep weapons, not people, off of airplanes. And we need to do a reasonable, not a perfect, job.

An unarmed jihadist on an airplane is not a problem. If he behaves himself, no one will know he’s there. If he doesn’t, a dozen or so people will grab him and tie him up for the duration of the flight.

So airport screening just has to make it hard to board with any weapon that makes it easy to overpower a crowd of airline passengers. We need to keep guns and big knives off airplanes, because they effectively equalize the numbers. But fingernail scissors? not so much. We need to keep bombs off, to the extent that we can. But, in practice, it is good enough if we can keep a bomb from going off. In the Nigerian case, as in the case of the Shoe Bomber, security screening made it hard to get a decent detonator on board, so neither bomber was able to detonate his explosives before passengers overpowered him. That, to my mind, is a security success, not a “systemic failure”.

Hysterical calls for more intrusive “security” measures, such as banning carry-on items, are merely an attempt to hide this success and preserve the state of supposed emergency. We are being told that coats and hand-luggage have to be baqnnned, even though such items are what people would use to fight someone armed with a box cutter. But the business travellers’ carry-on electronics are apparently going to be exempt, even though they are far better candidates for concealing a bomb (as the Lockerbie bomb showed, a thin sheet of plastic explosive can be molded to fit inside the case of an electronic device and the required battery and detonator will raise no suspicion).

Admittedly, sensible restrictions will not guarantee that a bombing, in particular, will never happen. But so what? Bombings have been happening from time to time for almost as long as there has been commercial flight. Why is the currently fashionable motive–Muslim extremism–more awful than the insurance fraud that used to drive the crime? Compared to other causes of loss of life in commercial aviation, bombings are rare, and commercial aviation is very safe. Safer, in fact, than driving a car that is chock full of safety features, none of which guarantees safety.

Imagine how many false positives facial analysis software will generate – and how much more money it will earn – when pictures are taken of passengers in mid-grope.

Rather than reveal their fear of being detected, those images will reveal a lot of other emotions, none of them kindly, but few of them related to any motive, means, opportunity or interest in doing harm (except to the ego or stature of the groper).

kkkarl rove expanded my imagination on this topic in the past few years

compared to most repuglitards, rham is an amateur

he might be the biggest Democratic Drama queen

Personally, I think rham finishes second in the drama queen competition in his own family, and barely better than fourth in the Illinois State Democratic drama queen competition (daley, burris, the blagoff, et al), but that’s jes my opinion …

The reverse is also true, in that small batteries and thin sheets of electronics can mimic computer operations sufficiently so as to pass a glancing inspection, while leaving room for a kilo of nasty stuff. Which means those trace element detectors and X-ray machines would have to be pretty good.

I agree that many of the steps TSA mandates simply populates the database and instills fear and compliance among the already compliant. It won’t have much affect on the dedicated. Ditto in the UK where DNA collection and background checks are becoming a mania out of all proportion to the risks to be avoided.

Banning liquids may be one good idea, what with multiple stage devices. That assumes airport handling of the supplies put on planes is also of a consistent high order. Is that true? Neither Bush nor Obama seems to devote many resources to obvious safety measures such as cargo inspections. Those affect big bidness. Airlines are hardly the only way to inflict public damage and political embarassment on the many in order violently to protest the plight of the few.

“Obama hires blue dog drama queens. Says a lot about what makes up his comfort zone.”

I don’t consider Rahm a drama queen at all. He is a hard driver who has a very foul mouth. Hired not to enhance his own power, reputation or position, not to make policy, but simply to kick ass when necessary. He is more like a Marine Basic Training Drill Sergeant, or my nun-teacher, Sister Mary Alice, in the 8th Grade, who made us all walk on sidewalk cracks, and the green tiles in a brown and green checkerboard hallway floor, (she liked straight lines, and very even strides,) which you did because otherwise she would turn bloood red and explode. In Political Campaign linguistics, a Drama Queen is more like Mark Penn in the Clinton Campaign — “The Star” — The super expensive Celebrity Campaign Manager, and it was “all about him.” James Carville would fill the “Drama Queen” bill too.

I don’t really fault Rahm, largely because I don’t see him as an independent actor in the Obama Administration. He is a very different and somewhat colorful character, but I doubt if he has much latitude to exercise much policy judgment that isn’t agreed Obama positions or strategy. He was hired largely because he knows how to manhandle Congress and any staffers with an independent instinct, and if he fails at that, he will be gone.

In my eye, he has been a failure and so has Obama. They are nothing but common retail Chicago politicians more concerned about the climb to, and accumulation of, power and are complete frauds from the image they try to project. Let me put this in terms Rahm could understand, I think he is a fucking asshole that is not good for the country and its long term interests and we would all be far better off with him long gone.

I am a little touchy these days. I agree with Sara very much in that Rahm is not an independent actor; this is Obama’s policy porfolio and he is in charge; doesn’t mean it does not have Rahm’s greasy fingerprints all over it though.

I agree that Rahma & Bahma are tied at the hip. Whether that’s voluntary or a function of Illinois or Democratic machine politics is beyond me.

Rahm and Obama are mutually dependent, but each retains considerable independence. Rahm is not simply the kind Obama’s tough assistant principal, who has to administer swats and take names. As COS, Rahm controls the president’s agenda, determines his office and travel schedule, and a myriad of other things, including the resources dedicated to making sure Senate nominees are approved by the Senate. He’s the last person most staff, aides and even Cabinet level appointees wrestle with. He’s not a gofer. He thinks he controls Congress, he’s not subject to it.

I think of Obama as the patron having his portrait done in political oils. Obama is paying for it and directing its size, its background, its broad outlines and some of its finer elements. Rahm is choosing colors, mixing them on the palette and canvas, applying the brush strokes himself.

Sara,
Thanks for helping us put Brennan in context.
Nevertheless, its hard to imagine Brennan as an honest broker in these matters. There really is a little too much like appointing the fox to investigate the hen house.

There really is too much a pattern of this in the Obama administration. Yes, no one knows more about the crime than the perpetrator, but that doesn’t mean it is good practice to appoint the perpetrator to head the investigation.

Shouldn’t Congress have the power to approve of these kind of appointments where there’s a possible conflict of interest?